Italian chocolate mousse; Cooking Italy

I don’t think I am making any of this in the right order but I’m having some trouble getting the right ingredients for the things I should be making. Angela was kind enough to give us a bonus recipe which we can use to substitute if necessary for another recipe. My plan was to make the pork but – believe it or not – I cannot find the needed piece of pork!! I haven’t tried all butcher’s yet in our hometown, but sofar number one and two were a no go. O yes, I can order it, but then I have to buy the entire piece which is a couple of kilo’s of porkmeat. No space in my freezer so… that’s not gonna work. So while I continue my search for something as simple as a porkloin (!!) I decided to make the Italian Chocolate Mousse from Marcella’s book.

I love chocolate mousse. I – in fact – love it more then I should… Really not good for the waistline! My all time favorite of chocolate mousse recipe is one of Donna Hay which I made for christmas dinner last year. I just noticed that I didn’t write down the recipe on the blog, but you have got to believe me when I say it’s delicious.

So when I was going through the recipe and read that it includes rum I was a bit hesitant. I do not like liqueur in my food and rum is not my favorite kind of drink at all.

Especially when it’s in a recipe where there is no cooking involved so the alcohol cannot evaporate. But I followed the recipe anyway and I have to say; I was pleasantly surprised. There is only two tablespoons of rum in it anyway and far far away you do taste it but it’s certainly not an overpowering alcohol taste. Very subtle and very delicious actually.

Ofcourse I didn’t have it chilled properly as yet, so I only ate the little bit leftover. It’s supposed to be for 6 glasses but I guess my glasses are slightly bigger so I had 5 glasses and then a little bit. So I chilled the little bit as well and then decided I should taste it… As I said; simply delicious…

Italian chocolate mousse

170 gr of dark chocolate

4 eggs

150 ml whipping cream (very cold)

4 tablespoons of dark espresso

2 tablespoons of rum

2 teaspoons of sugar

1. Make a double boiler and bring the water to a soft simmer. Put the chocolate in a heat resistant bowl and leave to melt. Put a mixing bowl in the freezer.

2. Split the eggs and whip the eggyolk with the sugar till it becomes light and creamy. Add the melted chocolate, rum and espresso.

3. Put the cream in the bowl that came out of the freezer and whip untill it becomes stiff. Add the cream to the chocolate mixture and combine with a spatula untill it becomes one liquid.

4. Mix the eggwhites untill it becomes stiff and forms peak and add that to the chocolate mixture as well.

5. Put into 6 glasses and put in the fridge overnight.

Showing the structure of the mousse... mmm